Amazon's Old Rival Prepares to Wage War Again

At the moment Amazon pretty much dominates online shopping—at least in America—but that wasn't always the case. Back in 2010 the e-commerce giant bullied Diapers.com, a rival website focused on selling baby-related products, into accepting a $540 million buyout. Now Marc Lore, who co-founded Diapers.com along with a family of online stores, is gearing up to launch a new Amazon competitor called Jet.

Lore's site will take a new approach, basing its prices off the distance between a particular product and the person who wants to buy it. That means some purchases could arrive extremely quickly for a low price, while other could take longer and cost a bit more. In a blog post today, Lore claims Jet will be a "new kind of e-commerce experience, uniquely grounded in transparency and customer empowerment." He's also promised to offer lower prices compared to more established e-commerce competitors including Amazon.

There's still a lot we don't know about Jet, though it sounds like the site will let third-party retailers sell their products through its platform similar to Amazon. Lore announced on Tuesday that he's wrapping up an initial Series A round of fundraising totaling $80 million. The new site isn't expected to launch until 2015, giving Amazon plenty of time to plan it defense against the new rival.